live from the kgo-tv broadcast center this is abc7 news. good morning, thanks for joining us. i am eric thomas. any minute, president obama will take the podium at the white house to deliver his end of the year address. you are, looking at the media room there at the white house, and abc is planning a special report so well bring that to you as soon as it happens right here live. >> new, we want to get to the brag news at home a crash on interstate 880 has though am coat flight shut down on the connection to a westbound i-80. video from sky 7 shows the mess involving up to definitely vehicles including a box truck that rolled on to another vehicle. despite all of this, the c.h.p. said there were only two minor

injuries. just one lane of 880 northbound is open right new and sue is here tracking this crash for us. sue? >> it has been a nightmare morning commute. the h.o.v. lane is the one lane that is open again, northbound 880 and another look at the scene. can you see the left lane or the of ho lane getting by with cars just one by one by one sneaking through. the rest of the the lanes are shut down the again, it is northbound 880, in the macarthur maze and you can use 980 to 580 to get around all of this and amazingly the backup is minimal at this point. trucks are being allowed to use 580 and that is a cake because normally they are not allowed to use that. because of the major accident, use mention, telephone vehicles involved and a mayor come no one was seriously hurt in the accident. we will follow this more for you and look at what happened this morning on another major problem on the bay bridge. >> we getting new details on the first bay bridge sig-alert of the morning when cans of paint

fell off a truck and burst open. all westbound lanes were shut down until the clean up crews could get there. our news reporter is in san francisco. the cause -- cost of the cleanup is important. >> yes, they will sight the driver who caused the mess. we were worried the traffic backup would land into the afternoon but i have a nice picture to show you right now, look at the bridge, the traffic is headed into the city and it is moving, it looks great and quite a contrast to what we saw earlier. one wrong move resulted in this, thousands of temperature stuck in slow stop-and-go traffic on the bay bridge this morning, headed in to san francisco. >> it is a mess when this happens on the bridge. >> a mess literally, look at the roads, a pickup truck carrying five gallon buckets lost the load 35 to 40 buckets fell on interstate 880 off the fremont

off-ramp before 4:00 this morning the c.h.p. shut down all but one. some cars drove through it and got the goop on their cars. >> it was a tremendous mess, many gallons of a paste substance spill on the road. >> first they thought it was payment but noticed it has a grainy texture. they worried about spinouts on the gravel substance and they spring weed sand on it and then it started to drizzle creating a slush of sand and rain and epoxy which is all they could do. they re-open the lanes at 6:45 but by then, the commute was wrack it. >> it was a bear. i caught the 5:45 bus and just got here at...7:30. >> a it would have been horrible. i would be frustrated.

some bypassed the bridge and took the officer i. >> i amount relaxed. going for work with a smile. not going to work grumpy. >> that will announce people who had to drive on that bridge. the driver was cited for not securing the load and caltran will file a claim with the insurance company to charge for the clean up. >> thank you, amy hollyfield and now, we are on storm watch for the afternoon commute a look from the east baylies camera showing the clouds rolling in and meteorologist mike nicco is now reading the clouds for weapon the rain is going do come in. >> yes, it looks like the president is ready, eric. >> okay our special report starts now.

their fundamental ideals of justice and fairness. and of course the most important job is to keep americans safe. i've had a lot to say about that this week, let me reiterate, the united states continues to lead a global coalition in our mission to destroy isil.

isil's already lost about 40% of the populated areas it once controlled in iraq, and it's losing territory in syria. as we keep up the pressure, our air campaign will continue to hit isil harder than ever. taking out their leaders, their commanders, and their forces. we're stepping up our support for partners on the ground as they push isil back. our men and women in uniform are carrying out their mission with a trademark professionalism and courage, and this holiday season, all of us are united in our gratitude for their service and we are thankful to their families as well because they serve alongside those who are actually deployed. squeezing isil's heart at its core in syria and iraq will make it harder for them to pump their terror and propaganda to the rest of the world. at the same time, as we know from san bernardino, where i'll visit with families later today, we have to remain vigilant here at home. our counterterrorism, sbenls,

homeland sturt and law enforcement communities are working 24/7 to protect our homeland and all of us can do our part by staying vigilant by saying something if wespicious d by refusing to be step size asked by staying united as one american family. in short, for all very real progress america has made the past seven years we still have unfinished business. i plan on doing everything i can with every minute of every day i have left as president to deliver on behalf of the american people. since taking this office i have never been more on the miss talk about a year ahead than now. in 2016 i will leave it owl on the field. with that, let me take some questions. i start with roberta from reuters. mr. president, you are going to california today and as we said early this week, you told the nation there is in credible threat of an attack but how is

it really possible to know? aren't similar plots going to be just as hard to detect? and lawmakers are saying director government did not reyou have the social media the of -- of those trying to come to the country. should it be mandatory? >> you are right it is very difficult for us to detect lone wolf plots or plots involving a husband and wife, in this kiss -- case because despite the incredible vigilance and professionalism of all of our three enforcement and homeland security, et cetera. it is not that different from us trying to detect the next mass shooter. you do not always see i the they are not always communicating. if you are not capping what they say publicly, it becomes a

challenge. we are continuing to work at every level to make sure there is no slip between information sharing among agencies. we are continuing to strengthen our information sharing with foreign countries and because, in part of the tragedy in paris, you are seeing much greater cooperation from our european partners on the issues. this is a different kind of challenge than the sort that we had with an organization like al-qaeda that involved highly trained operatives working as cells or a network. here essentially you have isil trying to encourage or induce someone who could be prey to

this propaganda. it becomes more difficult to see. it does mean they less likely to be able carry out large complex attacks but as we saw in san bernardino, obviously, you can still do enormous damage. the issue of reviewing social media for those who are obtaining visas, may have gotten gash bell -- garbled. it is important to distinction between posts that are public, social media on a facebook page versus private communications through various social media or apps. our law enforcement and intelligence professionals are constantly monitoring public

posts part of the visa review process people are investigating whatvilles have said -- what individuals have said publicly and questioned about any statements that may be made. if you have a private communication between two individuals, that is harder to discern by definition. and one of the things we will be doing is engaging with high together community to find out how we can in an appropriate way do a better job if we have a lead to be able to track suspected terrorists but we are going do have to recognize no government is going to have a way to read every person's text or e-mails or social media. if it is not posted publicly

there are going to be feasibility issues that are probably insurmountable and it raises questions of our values much keep in mind it was only a couple of years ago we had a major debate about whether the government was becoming too much like big brother. we have struck the right balance overall in prosecuting civil liberties and big sure united states citizens' privacy is preserveed; that we are making sure there is oversite to what our intelligence answers do. we are going do have to continue to balance our needs for security with people's legitimate concerns about privacy. because the internet is global and communication systems are global the values we apply here

often times are ones that folks who are trying to come into the country are also benefiting from because they are using the same temperatures. this is precisely why we are working very hard to bring law enforcement, intelligence, and high-tech companies together because we are going do have to review what we can do both technically as well as consistent with our values in order to try to discern more rapidly some of the potential threats. david jackson? >> mr. president, congress has made it clear they will not let you transfer prisoners to the pounce are trial but some people thing you have the executive authority to transfer, closing gitmo itself next year. do you believe you have this authority? are you willing to exercise it? >> first of all, we have been

working systematically, another example of persistence, in reduce the population. we have a review process of those eligible for transfer. we locate countries that have accepted some of the detainees. they monitor them. it has been determined they can be transferred. my expectation is by early next year we should have reduced that population below 100. we will continue to chip away at the numbers in guantanamo. there is a point where people who pose a significant threat for various reasons it is difficult for us to try them in the court and some of those folks are going through the military commission process. however, there is going to be a

challenge there. now, at that stage, i am presenting a plan to congress about how we can close guantanamo. i am not automatically assuming congress says no. i am not being coy, i think it is fair to say there is significant resistance from some headquarters to that. but we can make a strong argument that doesn't make sense for us to be spending an extra $100 or $200 or $300 or $500 or setting for 50, 60, 70 people. we will wait until congress has definitive said "no," to a well-thought-out plan with numbers attached to it before we

say anything definitive about my executive authority. it is far preferable if i get stuff done with congress. >> dave, as i said and i think you is seen me on a bunch of issues like immigration, i will not...be forward leaning on what i can do without congress before i have testified what i can do with congress. once in a while they surprise you. this could be one of these places because i think we can make a strong architect guantanamo continues to be one of the key magnets for jihad recruitment. to roberta's question, how do they convince someone here in the united states who may not have a criminal record or a history of terrorist activity,

to start shooting, this is part of what they feed, this notion of a gross injustice that america is not living up to its ideals. we know that. we see the internet traffic and how guantanamo has been used to create this mythology that america is at war with islam. for us to chose it, that is part of our counterterrorism strategy. it is supported by our military and our diplomatic and our intelligence teams. when you combine that with the fact that it is really expensive and we are essentially at this point detaining a handful of people and each person is costing several million dollars to detain when this are more efficient ways of doing it, we

can make a strong argument. i will take your point that it will be an uphill battle. not every bat will i have had with congress the last five years has been uphill and we keep on vasing by getting stuff done. >> on immigration --. >> sometimes that may prove necessary. but we try not to get ahead of ourselves on that. julie? >> mr. president, i want to ask you about...non- >> some of the republicans running for president say the middle east would be safer if this were changes in iraq and libya and egypt and having gone through the arab spring and the aftermath what do you see at our goal in the middle east pushing dictators out power? do you advise future presidents do call for the the. >> authoritarian leaders to

step down? >> you know, there has been a lot of revisionist history, sometimes by the same people, making different argues depending on the situation. maybe it is useful just for us to go back over some of these issues. we did not depose mubarak. millions of egyptians did. because of their dissatisfaction with the corruption and authoritarianism of the regime. we had a working relationship with blew -- with mubarak. the notion that somehow the united states was in a position to pull the strings on a country that is the largest in the arab world is a mistake. what is true is at the point the choice becomes, mowing down millions of people or trying to

find some transition, we believe, and i would still argue, it was more sensible to find a peaceful transition to the egyptian situation. with respect to libya, libya is in some ways because by the time the international coalition interceded in syria, chaos had broken out already. you already had the makings of a civil war. you had a dictator who was threatening and was in a position to carry out the slaughter of large numbers of people. we worked under u.n. mandate with a coalition of folks in order to try to avert a big

humanitarian can tass rove -- catastrophe that would not be good for us. those would argue we should have left muammar qaddafi in there seem to forget that he had already lost legitimacy and control of his country and we could have instead of what we have in libya now quote have had another syria in libya. the problem with libya was the fact that there was a failure on part of the entire international community and the united states has some accountability for not moving swiftly enough and underestimating the need to rebuild government there quick quickly. as a consequence, we new have a very bad situation. as far as syria goes, it is entirely right and proper for

the united states of america to specific out on after of the values. when you have an authoritarian leader that is killing hundreds of thousands of his own people, the notion we would stand by and say nothing is contrary to who we are. that does not senator -- deserve our interest. us being in collusion with that kind of governing would make us even more of a target for terrorist activity. [ inaudible ] >> the reason that assad has been a problem in syria is because that is a majority sunni country. he had lost the space that he had early on to execute an

inclusive peaceful transition. he picked instead, to slutter -- slaughter people and when that happened the idea that a minority population there could somehow crush tens of millions of people who oppose him is not feasible. it is not plausible. even if you were being cold eyed and sacred heart cathedral preparatory schooled about the human toll there, it would not happen and as a consequence, our view has been that you cannot bring peace to syria, you cannot get an end to the civil war not you have a government that is recognized as legitimate by a majority of that country.

this is the argument i have had with mr. vladimir putin date five years ago and his suggestion as i gather some republicans suggesting, well, assad is not so bad. let him just be as brutal and oppressive as he can but he will keep order. look, the problem is that the history of trying to keep order when a large majority of the country has turned against you is not good. give years later, i was right. so we now have an opportunity and john kerry is meeting as we speak with syria and turkey and iran and the gulf countries and other interested parties, we now have an opportunity not to turn back clock. it is going to be difficult to completely overcome the devastation that has happened in syria already, but to find